These Women Made History

The Arlington Public Library has a new digital collection chronicling local women's achievements.

Suffragist Gertrude Crocker. Courtesy of the Center for Local History, Arlington Public Library

In 1920, Gertrude Crocker, a noted suffragist and treasurer for the National Woman’s Party, opened the Little Tea House on Arlington Ridge Road. In the years that followed, the famed restaurant (which closed in 1963) would welcome the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. It was also one of the first Arlington establishments to allow racially mixed groups to dine together.

Crocker is just one of the pioneering women—along with figures such as Monopoly game inventor Elizabeth Magie and WETA founder Elizabeth Campbell—included in the new digital collection Women’s Work, in the Arlington Public Library’s Center for Local History. Set to be unveiled on March 20, the collection chronicles the stories of pivotal females in Arlington’s history through archival documents, letters, oral histories and photographs. “This year is the year of the woman,” says Center manager Judith Knudsen. “It makes [this resource] more important than ever.”library.arlingtonva.us/center-for-local-history